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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: What're your biggest non-tabletop influences for D&D?

    Quote Originally Posted by GungHo View Post
    A lot of 70s-90s sword & sorcerer movies and other genre films, including the Sword the Sorcerer series, the Lou Ferrigno Hercules series, Wizards, The Beastmaster, Clan of the Cave Bear, The Dark Crystal, Dragonslayer, Highlander, Krull, The Warriors, Legend, Conan, Red Sonja, Willow, Zardoz, Erik the Viking.

    Basically, MGM, Golan-Globus/Cannon, and Orion Pictures were all over my screen.
    Oh man, Willow! Love that show

    Including past and present not D&D influences:

    Discworld. DAvid Gemmel books. Conan. LotR books/movies. GoT show (havent read the books). Stardust. He-man show. Dragonslayer movie. Barbarian brothers movie. Spartacus tv show (recentish, I think that's what it was called). Penny Dreadful show. Shannara books. DAvid Eddings books. Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Cthulhu/touch of lovecraft.
    Last edited by Psikerlord; 2017-05-04 at 07:47 PM.
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  2. - Top - End - #32
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    HalflingRogueGuy

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    Default Re: What're your biggest non-tabletop influences for D&D?

    Quote Originally Posted by Psikerlord View Post
    ...David Eddings books...
    Ayyy, I was hoping to see Eddings pop up here. The Belgariad and the Malloreon were some of my favorite series as a kid, I absolutely devoured them. I loved (and still do) how pleasant and entertaining it was to just listen to read the characters holding conversations with each other.

    And Silk is still one of my favorite characters of all time.

  3. - Top - End - #33
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Mordar's Avatar

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    Default Re: What're your biggest non-tabletop influences for D&D?

    Quote Originally Posted by Big Papa Turnip View Post
    Ayyy, I was hoping to see Eddings pop up here. The Belgariad and the Malloreon were some of my favorite series as a kid, I absolutely devoured them. I loved (and still do) how pleasant and entertaining it was to just listen to read the characters holding conversations with each other.

    And Silk is still one of my favorite characters of all time.
    To me Eddings was like "new pulp" (and that's a very good thing!!!)...I remember buying the books at the Hy-Vee (grocery store) with allowance money.

    Other important authors to me in my formative years (beyond Tolkien):

    • T. Brooks (no, being derivative isn't a bad thing in this case)
    • R.E. Howard
    • F. Leiber
    • M. Moorcock
    • L. Alexander
    • E.R. Burroughs


    Tons of others came along too, but these were the early ones for me (late 70s/early 80s) that set the fantasy table for my RPGing.

    - M
    No matter where you go...there you are!

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  4. - Top - End - #34
    Troll in the Playground
     
    BardGuy

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    Default Re: What're your biggest non-tabletop influences for D&D?

    I wouldn't call it an influence so much as a resource, and I've shilled it a few times in various threads so please forgive the repetition, but a not-exactly-tabletop resource I really like is Medieval Demographics Made Easy. It's got some really nifty kingdom-building info that's really helped me generate settings. There are several generators using the information from it linked at the bottom of the Medieval Demographics page to take most of the work out of using it.
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  5. - Top - End - #35
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: What're your biggest non-tabletop influences for D&D?

    I read an awful lot, as can be expected, I read an awful of Fantasy particularly.

    Recently I've been reading through the Witcher series. I've actually never played the video-games, but I know their plots, and was intrigued by Geralt of Rivia and his story as told by the actual author.

    This played directly into my latest DnD session. In the second book of the series Geralt encounters a mermaid, mermaids only communicate in elven song, which makes an awkward situation for Geralt. I though this was a good premise for my next session and so introduced a mermaid for the party to encounter who could only speak in song.

    it was...interesting forcing both myself and my players to talk to me in song.
    it was awkward as hell, I hated do it, the players were not subtle in their disdain for having to talk to me in song. I stuck to my guns though ,and they admitted at the end of the session that they thought it made for interesting RP to be forced to speak in a way They never though.

    It was actually pretty similar to the book that inspired the encounter. One of my players even vented his frustration in a very similar way to Geralt in Sword of Destiny
    Last edited by Hagashager; 2017-05-05 at 11:27 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Planetar

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    Default Re: What're your biggest non-tabletop influences for D&D?

    Hmm, tough question for me. Bits and pieces tend to be taken from different pieces of media. I enjoyed the immortal Byzantine warriors in the newest Tomb Raider game, which led to a brief wiki walk on the Byzantine Empire, which led to one of the bigger nations in the setting I work on. In the same setting, there was a race based on a faction in Endless Legend, as well as a region that's basically Pacific Rim with samurai mechs (taking a bit from Escaflowne), and another region that's Mad Max: Fury Road and Fallout stuck together. Kill 6 Billion Demons has influenced a bit of how I interpret Psionics, strangely enough. The game Bastion heavily colors how I tend to do any frontier region.

    As for feel and tone of my games... I think Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines would be the closest work I thematically imitate; societies are lumbering, warring beasts, metaphorically speaking, always seeking each other's blood, but individuals can be strong enough for change. Having near-schizo tech but still be internally consistent is important for me as well; I tend to think heavily about the implications of certain aspects. I try to think about what I want in a setting (say, a flying city), think about how it came to be, what problems it would face, how those issues would be addressed, while still keeping what I want.

    I can't really think of anything that inspired the disparity of villains in my games; I try to keep moral dilemmas out of my games, while not making them saccharine. I tend not to do joke villains, and make either truly evil villains or ruthless villains with a cause. Bionicle might be where that comes from.

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    WhiteWizardGirl

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    Default Re: What're your biggest non-tabletop influences for D&D?

    Quote Originally Posted by souridealist View Post
    ...the things you can pinpoint as influencing you when you sit down at the table.

    Mine:
    Fairy tales / Greek and Roman mythology / Arthuriana (no particular versions for any of them)
    The Tortall Universe by Tamora Pierce
    The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

    ...
    The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
    ...
    The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede...
    Not an answer to your question, but: with these on your major influences list, I think I'd play pretty much anything you run! Lemme guess: somewhat cheeky and satirical of the usual tropes, very down-to-earth where it's needed, but also respectful of the older mythic sources and with perhaps more research into said myths than is usual?

    (It's also nice to find someone who's into the same weird books as I am. I've never met anyone else who knows the Enchanted Forest Chronicles before, and Tortall fans are difficult to spot.)

    Edit: It feels rather rude to post without answering the question, so here goes, in no particular order:

    • Mythology - Norse, Classical, Egyptian, Chinese, Irish, Judeo-Christian, Islamic, African, Mesopotamian, Mesoamerican - any folktales, myths, legends, fairytales, and miscellaneous similar things I come across, basically. This includes Robin Hood, King Arthur, The 1001 Nights, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and so forth, as well as more modern literature about mythologies such as.
    • History - mostly the ancient world and the early modern period, but I've been known to sneak in more modern patterns. This includes historical fiction and historical fantasy - I, Coriander; Swallows and Amazons; The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate; The Inquisitor's Apprentice; Theodosia Throckmorton; The Clockwork Century; heck, even the Enchanted Tree House books.
    • Classical Literature - Homer, Sophocles, Cicero, Catullus. Sappho.
    • Tortall - great pragmatic fantasy series. 9/10 would recommend (but not Mastiff).
    • Tolkien - of course. Not so much Lewis, but Tolkien, yes.
    • The Inheritance Cycle - by Chris Paolini. Do not read these books. I'm not kidding, don't do it. They're really bad. I read them as an elementary schooler and loved them, and there's a lot of good stuff hidden in there, but it's poorly executed and just generally buried in dreck. Old shame. Do not touch.
    • Order of the Stick - technically not tabletop itself, yes? It's not the oblique references to game rules that I'm referring to, but the world-building and the ethical and philosophical questions.
    • Cornelia Funke - German fantasy author. Probably the most influential for me was her Inkworld series, followed by Reckless. Both are fairly dark fantasy and filled with twisted fairytales. Anything that twists or reinterprets fairytales probably belongs on this list.
    • Ursula K. LeGuin - Earthsea, Annals of the Western Shore, and The Left Hand of Darkness are all my jam.
    • Ender's Game - because my copies of this and TLHoD are about the same size, and one is black and the other is white, and they're both sci-fi books but one is about winning a war and the other is about establishing a peace, I think of these two as Together somehow and usually place them next to each other on the shelf. Which has nothing to do with how influential the book was for me, of course, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
    • Patricia C. Wrede - the aforementioned Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which are a "take that!" at bad fantasy and overused fairytales at once. Also the Sorcery and Cecilia books, co-written with Caroline Stevermer, which are Regency fantasy - like Jane Austen, but with magic - and the Frontier Magic books, which are Wild West fantasy - not exactly Weird West, I think, but definitely fantasy. Some of her miscellaneous work, too - short stories and the like.
    • Jane Austen - her too, for that matter. It's by no means boring, however dry the prose may seem.
    • Shakespeare - similarly to Austen. Particularly The Tempest.
    • Hamilton (2016 musical) - this ties back into the history thing. Have I mentioned I love history?
    • Roald Dahl - The Witches, Matilda, The BFG. Confession time, Matilda is still my ideal of a psion, not Professor X.
    • Downton Abbey - for social-based (mis)adventures.
    • Deltora Quest - along with the Inheritance Cycle, this was my introduction to most of the more common fantasy tropes. Yet still, as I recall, relatively fresh and interesting.
    • Brandon Mull - not the best urban fantasy out there, but fun and creative.
    • The Mysterious Benedict Society - superspy genre? Sci-fi? It's not really like any other series. It's like puzzle-based gaming, but novels.
    • American Girls - yes, the dolls, but the books!
    • Jessica Day George - Dragon Slippers and Tuesdays at the Castle (and sequels) are delightful. Sorta Dragonlanceish? But also Patricia C. Wredeish?
    • The 'Ology series - Dragonology, Wizardology, Pirateology, and so forth. I loved them as a kid. Still have them, in fact.
    • Neil Gaiman - Stardust, The Graveyard Book.
    • Rudyard Kipling - I loved the heck outta Rikki-tikki-tavi, the Just So Stories, and The Jungle Book. Talking animals? Kipling. Human ingenuity and resourcefulness? Kipling.
    • Spirited Away - I don't think I have much Japanese influence, but what I do is from here.
    • InuYasha - anime and manga. The other half of my influence from Japanese media. Unless you count mythology and history, of course. (Talk to me about ninja sometime!)
    • H.P. Lovecraft - in my opinion a number of his works don't properly qualify as horror - Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, A Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward are dark supernatural mystery; At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow out of Time are xenoethnology. However, The Thing on the Doorstep (upon which I based my award-winning, if noobish entry to the Villainous Competition - along with The Colour out of Space and The Rats in the Walls are very definitely horror. At any rate, I've only read a small part of his total corpus... another time, perhaps.
    • Edgar Allan Poe - speaking of horror... The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher - and then The Raven, naturally, and the stories of Arsene Dupin. (Sherlock Holmes before Sherlock Holmes!)
    • Sherlock Holmes - the original short stories, the official tie-in novel The House of Silk, the televised adaptation Elementary, the movies with Robert Downey Jr - this is my jam. Sherlock Holmes had a number of contemporary fictional detectives, as well, who similarly inspire me.
    • Poirot - more in the detectives theme, yes.
    • Criminal Minds, Bones, Columbo, Psych, Numb3rs - the more modern kind as well. I prefer those that have some particular unique characteristic - not a gimmick, but perhaps a schtick - over just general cop shows like NCIS or CSI.
    • The Matrix - Not the franchise, just the first movie. I'm seriously considering a setting that is actually a Matrix run by elves. Not drow, just elves. That are evil. Evil elves.
    • Inception - haven't seen, but know about.
    • Children of the Lamp - Philip Kerr. This does for the 1001 Nights what Rick Riordan does for Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology.
    • The Phantom Tollbooth - my first hardcore allegory.
    • The Land of Elyon - Patrick Carman. It's. Uh. It's a thing. I guess it's fantasy? It's also sort of Christianity? I'm not sure.
    • Circle of Avalon - I think that's what it's called? Where these three girls do magic and there's fey and stuff. Checked it out from the library when I was quite small.
    • Indiana Jones - when someone mentions a quest for an ancient artifact, this is what springs to mind.
    • Guardians of Ga'Hoole/Wolves of the Beyond - Kathryn Lasky. Little me loved animals.
    • Warrior Cats - see Lasky, above. I tried to make a Warrior Cats video game once.
    • Tales from Dimwood Forest - and most other things from the "talking mouse adventures" genre.
    • Phantom Stallion - and other "horse girl" genre.
    • Alien and Aliens - not the later movies in the series, but these two... they have a special place in my heart.
    • Spartacus - the movie. We watched it in high school Latin.
    • The Eagle - also a movie. Has Channing Tatum doing his usual Channing Tatum thing. Also, Roman Britannia.
    • Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Kane Chronicles. He takes mythology I love and turns it on its head and makes new things out of it - a vital skill to learn.
    • Buffy/Angel - a big part of my childhood.
    • Anything by Tony DiTerlizzi and/or Holly Black - Spiderwick Chronicles, WondLa, Magisterium.
    • His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman. Movie first, actually, and then the books. Formative.
    • Ye Olde Novels - Frances Hodgson Burnett, Jules Verne. Also, Black Beauty.
    • Maleficent (2014) - much more my style than Tolkien. Some other Disney movies as well - most notably Brave. Pirates of the Caribbean, vaguely? I think? Disney's Robin Hood? Let's just say Disney.
    • The Dark Crystal - I dimly remember watching this. I remember the plot, but not so much the visuals - this was before I started to notice the fakeness of puppet special effects.
    • Labyrinth - for some reason I always think of this movie and The Dark Crystal as being part of the same category. Both are puppet-animation quest movies that scared the heck out of me, I guess.
    • Madeline L'Engle - probably the reason I'm so comfortable with sci-fi elements in fantasy.
    • The Last Dragon Chronicles - probably the other reason I'm so comfortable with sci-fi elements in fantasy.
    • Young Wizards - Diane Duane. Yanno what, I'm just gonna say that I like science fantasy. That's a pretty safe statement.
    • The Elder Scrolls - pretty much Morrowind onwards. I started on Oblivion, so a lot of my stuff has a similar "feel" to Oblivion. (Which can mean bright and fresh and green, or culturally rich city/town, or ravaged hellscape, depending.)
    • Star Trek - mostly The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, though I've got a soft spot for the reboots. (I'll critique their - imo many - flaws until the cows come home, but I just can't shake liking them.) 'Darmok', 'Masks', and Cardassians in general are particular favorites of mine.
    • Star Wars - the original trilogy, the new trilogy, Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMO; if I'd meant Knights I would've said Knights), and some knowledge of (but never watched) the prequel trilogy.
    • Marvel Cinematic Universe - particularly Phase One.
    • Harry Potter - read the first book when I was quite small, and nothing's been quite the same ever since.
    • Understanding Comics - by Scott McCloud. Really helps with medium awareness and general creative development, even outside of a comics medium.
    • Discworld - without Ankh-Morpork, the fantasy city would be bereft.
    • Game of Thrones. I have never read or watched Gane of Thrones, but I have learned most of the important things from spoilery internet stuff.
    • Gulliver's Travels.
    • Basically anything you'd read in American high school English.
    • Mad Max: Fury Road.
    • Dragon Age - another of those I haven't played but have researched a lot.
    • Fallout - see Dragon Age.
    • Ye Olde Slave Narratives - Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, etc. Not necessarily slave narratives all the time; slavefy narratives, also - like Ngola Nzingha of Matamba, who fought slavery but was not a slave, and the rather amazing quilombo royalty like Dandara who developed capoeira.
    • Miscellaneous TVTropes - seriously, you'd be surprised at how much you can get from TVTropes. It's not just a time sink.
    • Music. Classic rock, metal, country, faux-folk/folk rock. Highlights (as regards influence on my D&D practice, not overall quality) include The Mariner's Revenge Song and The Infanta (The Decemberists), most things by Simon and Garfunkel, Okkervil River, and The Mountain Goats, and occasional folk songs - sometimes from Ireland and Scotland; sometimes from the Appalachians. Blackmore's Night, also, though not their love songs. I have a friend who puts together playlists for an original (non-D&D) setting of ours, so those tend to put me in a fantasy mood as well and sometimes color my creative choices. ...and then there's Mordred's Lullaby (Heather Dale) and Garden of Shadows (Erutan)! I apologize for this list-within-a-list - I'll stop now.


    Wow... that list looks a lot darker than I expected. Well, half really dark and half stuff I read in grade school. Weird.
    Last edited by DontEvenAsk; 2017-05-15 at 11:42 AM.
    DontEvenAsk, no apostrophe. I play D&D 3.X/PF, and some 5e. Life has a tendency to spring surprise problems on me, leading to temporary ghosting that I usually can't predict. If I vanish, I'm probably not dropping out if your game, just swamped.

    My campaign setting. Please look, don't touch for now.

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